Pennsbury To Change High School Start Times Next Year

FALLSINGTON, PA —After several years of research, the Pennsbury School District is taking the plunge.

The school district has announced that students will start classes at Pennsbury High School a little later next year.

Schools Superintendent Thomas A. Smith sent an email Monday to the Pennsbury School Community that starting in the 2025-2026 school year, Pennsbury High School will begin around 8 a.m. instead of the current 7:20 a.m. starting time.

Smith said the move was made to help improve student well-being and academic performance.

"For the past several years, Pennsbury has been investigating later start times for our high school campus. This is due to an increasing body of research that raises concerns with a high school start time prior to 8:00 am. At 7:20 am, Pennsbury High School starts earlier than most schools in the area," Smith said.

“We are targeting a change to the high school start time for September 2025 (approximately 17 months from now)," the superintendent said.

He said the final high school start time is yet to be determined but will be around 8 a.m.

"As part of our plan to prepare for this change, we will spend the next 17 months sharing information and finalizing the logistics like transportation, athletics, and the high school schedule (specifically when the day will end),” he said.

The move aligns with national trends where states like California and Florida have mandated later start times for public schools.

He said that elementary times should stay the same, but the middle school times will move up slightly.

Smith said that more details would be shared as the process continues.

Anyone interested in learning more about the district's history regarding the research can click here.

To start the transition process, during Thursday's school board meeting, the board will host a brief presentation regarding the benefits of a later high school start time by Bert Mandelbaum.

Residents can attend the meeting in person or click here to watch the livestream.

Mendelbaum is a pediatrician with Princeton Nassau Pediatrics and is chairman of the department of pediatrics for Penn Medicine Princeton Health. He is the chair of the Task Force on Adolescent Sleep and School Start Times for the New Jersey Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

He gave a presentation at PHS in October of 2021. You can view the full presentation here - https://bit.ly/2XHGzUy.